Attila Kinali wrote: > Yes. But 99.999% of the companies do not care if you redistribute > their freely available datasheets on your webpage. It is a different > matter if they do not provide publicaly available datasheets.
But the *reason* for us to keep a local copy is that some of them have changed their policy since we selected the chips -- so what they used to publish online they now say you have to get through your "sales representative". In fact, I believe we have located all of these, and these are the ones we have the most cause to publish. But can we legally do it? I think not. Would it be rational for the company to let us (as Dieter suggests in a parallel thread)? Probably -- at least in a sane world. However, in the (insane) world we live in there are three reasons why they would want to block this: 1) Datasheets might tip a competitor off to some technology they are using, who would then be in a better position to reverse engineer their chip (Improbable as a real scenario, but well within the realm of corporate paranoia!) 2) Datasheets might expose a patent violation, thus exposing the company to legal risk. 3) Datasheets for expired/obsolescent products may encouraged continued orders or support requests for products which are no longer made -- thus adding to the companies costs but not contributing to sales. I don't think any of these outweighs the goodwill advantage of having your products used in an Open Hardware project, but neither do I think chip companies will be supportive. In fact, I suspect they see us as competitors rather than allies -- even though this is highly incorrect. Chip companies hamstringing Open Hardware would be exactly as rational as Home Depot spreading FUD about home-improvement do-it-yourselfers (i.e. NOT). Cheers, Terry -- Terry Hancock ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) Anansi Spaceworks http://www.AnansiSpaceworks.com _______________________________________________ Open-graphics mailing list [email protected] http://lists.duskglow.com/mailman/listinfo/open-graphics List service provided by Duskglow Consulting, LLC (www.duskglow.com)
